AGING OUT

When it comes to navigating the road to adulthood, teenagers in foster care are not all that different from their peers.

Some are able to build a solid plan, while others seem less sure about their future. All of them, though, face adulthood with challenges their classmates likely won’t have to overcome.

Alicia Bauer, a social worker with the Minnesota County Prairie Alliance, specializes in helping teens through that transition. MNPrairie manages the foster care program for Steele, Dodge, and Waseca counties.

“Typically, I get involved around 17, 17-and-a-half,” Bauer said. “I get involved with their current social worker and the child, and we start to make a plan.”

The State of Minnesota requires that teens receive a notice about six months before they turn 18. It lays out their options, which include choosing to stay in foster care if they’re completing high school or getting a GED, enrolling in a post-secondary education program, working at least 80 hours a month, or have a disability or medical condition that prevents them from working or going to school.

Youth-led plan

Bauer said she first explains her role as the teen’s social worker from age 18-21 and from there, they start to pull together the plan.

“It’s really youth-led, so if it’s that they’re going to college, I can help them with FAFSA, I can help them with college applications, we can do school tours,” she said.

She also explains the Fostering Independence grant, available to Minnesota students under age 27 who were in the Minnesota foster care system at any point after their 13th birthday. The grant helps cover the cost of attending public or participating private colleges and universities.

Bauer said some of the young people she has worked with have solid plans for their future, while others are “more impulsive decision-makers who kind of go with the flow,” she said.

“Every one is really unique, it really varies,” she said. “I have had youth who have been really successful and have saved their stipend money and bought a house at 21, and others who have been floundering at 21.”

MNPrairie Child & Family Social Services Supervisor Billie Frantesl said young people who opt out of the extended care program can still choose to enter it anytime between the ages of 18 and 21.

Permanent connections

While they’re in the extended program, a social worker will check on them throughout those years.

“There’s goals in all of the areas, so housing, education, and employment, and we especially monitor those during that time,” Bauer said.

After age 21, youth can transfer to either Fernbrook Family Center or Lutheran Social Services, depending on where they live, for case management through age 23.

Frantesl noted that they receive a monthly payment from the county, which can be used to cover rent or housing expenses.

In addition to the more practical aspects of their plan, Bauer also talks with young people about making permanent connections, whether that’s with family members or others in the community. They also have conversations about healthy relationships, to “make sure they’re not being taken advantage of.”

Those permanent, long-term connections contributes to the young person’s success, Frantesl said, adding, “If people are willing to be supportive to those children aging out of the system, the more supports they have the better.”

Bauer noted that “a shift in practice” toward emphasizing those permanent connections has led to a drop in children aging out.

“We try to attain permanency for kids, meaning there’s been a transfer of custody to someone or an adoption,” Frantesl said.

No matter what path a young person chooses, Bauer said, “We try to set them up for as much success as possible.”